by Nancy Krulik
“If you become King George of Arfendonia, will you get to wear a crown?” Chris asked George.
“I guess so,” George said. “Don’t all kings wear crowns?”
“You could probably knight people, too,” Chris added excitedly.
George reached over and grabbed the plunger from Chris’s Toiletman Halloween costume. “Kneel down,” he told Chris.
Chris got down on one knee in front of George.
“I dub thee Sir Chris of Arfendonia,” George said as he tapped Chris on each shoulder with the plunger.
“Thank you, King George,” Chris joked. “You can count on me to flush all the bad guys out of Arfendonia.”
George laughed. “How about you, Alex?” he asked. “You wanna be a royal knight of Arfendonia?”
“No, thanks,” Alex said. “I don’t know where that plunger’s been.”
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that,” Chris said. “It’s only been used once, in an emergency. And I washed it off really well after.”
“Thanks anyway,” Alex said. “I have to get home.”
“Me too,” George added. He grabbed his backpack and his jacket. “I don’t want to be late for dinner. My mom’s making tuna casserole tonight. It doesn’t taste so great when it gets cold.”
“Is tuna casserole an Arfendonian dish?” Chris asked him.
George shrugged. “I don’t know anything about Arfendonia,” he admitted.
“After Friday’s assembly, everyone will know about it,” Alex said. “You’re going to be the biggest news of the whole program.”
George thought Alex could be right. The other kids were going to be so impressed. Well, most of them, anyway. Louie would probably just be mad. He was always bragging about how the Farley family was the most powerful and richest in the whole school. Which they probably had been—
Until now!
“I couldn’t believe it,” George heard Sage saying as he and Alex walked onto the playground before school the next morning. “I didn’t even know snakes could be milked. But that’s what my second cousin once removed did for a living.”
“Why would anyone want snake milk?” Julianna asked.
“I read that they use it to make medicine for people who have snakebites,” Sage explained. “It can be used as antivenom.”
George smiled. Milking snakes was definitely cool. But not as cool as being king of a whole country. He opened his mouth to tell everyone about his interesting relative, but Julianna started talking before he could get a word out.
“My great-aunt was an airplane pilot,” Julianna said. “I’ve always wanted to fly. I guess I’m a lot like her.”
“It’s amazing what you can find out on that website,” George began. “My—”
“I’m a lot like my relatives, too,” Max interrupted. “I had a few chimney sweeps in my family tree.”
“How are you like a chimney sweep?” Louie asked him.
“I’m always a mess,” Max told him. “My mom says I’m a dirt magnet. And chimney sweeps get pretty dirty doing their jobs.”
George couldn’t wait any longer. “Wait until you guys hear—” he began.
But Mike started talking right over him. “My great-grandmother was a potato-chip inspector,” he told everyone. “She made sure the chips were shaped right, and that they had just enough salt on them.”
He pulled a potato chip out of his lunch bag and licked the salt off. “Mmm. Perfect,” he said as he chomped down on the chip. Bits of potato chip flew out of his mouth.
“I could get used to tasting potato chips all day,” Julianna said.
George was bursting with excitement. He couldn’t hold in his news any longer. “I’m related to a king!” he blurted. Everyone stopped talking.
“You’re what?” Julianna asked.
“Related to a king,” George repeated. “King Stanley of Arfendonia. He’s my seventeenth cousin twice removed on my mother’s side.”
“Oh, Georgie,” Sage gushed. She batted her eyelids up and down.
George shook his head. He hated when Sage called him Georgie. What kind of a name was that for royalty? King Georgie?
“You’re related to a king?” Julianna repeated. “That’s just crazy.”
“I’ll say,” Louie agreed. “Crazy. Which is what George is. Crazy. As in cuckoo. Nuts. There’s no way that weirdo freak could ever be a king.”
“Actually, there is,” Alex said. “A whole lot of people would have to die or turn down their right to be king in order for him to do it, but George could possibly be king of Arfendonia someday.”
“The website has to be wrong,” Louie continued. “Royal families are rich. And George isn’t rich. I am.”
“But are you related to a king?” George asked him.
Louie scowled. “Where is this Arfendonia place, anyway? I’ve never heard of it. Have any of you guys?”
The kids all shook their heads.
“See?” Louie said. “He’s making the whole thing up. There’s no Arfendonia. And there isn’t any king. You need to come up with something better than this, George. Otherwise you’re going to make a fool of yourself in front of everyone in Beaver Brook!”
BUZZZZ. At just that moment, the buzzer rang. It was time for school to start.
“After you, Your Majesty,” Alex said with a grin and a bow.
George tried to force a smile onto his face. It wasn’t easy. After what Louie said, he wasn’t feeling so happy anymore.
Louie was right. Nobody had ever heard of Arfendonia. It was too small. Too far away. And no one—not even George—knew anything about it.
If George didn’t come up with some interesting facts about the place soon, he was going to be royally embarrassed on Friday night.
“Ms. Folio,” George said to the school librarian later that day, “where are the books on foreign cultures?”
“Look in the three hundred section,” Ms. Folio told him. “Where the social science books are.”
“Thanks,” George said. He started to walk over to that section of the library, hoping to find a book there about the people and customs of Arfendonia.
“What are you staring at?” Louie demanded as George passed the table where he was sitting. He slammed his book shut and threw his body over the cover so George couldn’t see it.
“I wasn’t staring,” George said. “I don’t care what you’re reading.” Although now that Louie had made such a big stink about it, George was kind of curious about what he was hiding.
But Louie wasn’t giving any clues. He just lay on top of his book until George walked away.
Grrr. Lucky Louie. He probably had tons of information on what his relative did and where he or she lived.
Once at the 300 section, George pulled out a book about kingdoms around the world. He looked at the index. There it was: Arfendonia . . . Page 23.
Okay, so it was only one page. But a guy could get a lot of information out of one page.
Or maybe not.
The only thing George saw on page twenty-three was a huge picture of grass dotted with purple flowers. The caption read: The island of Arfendonia has many gardens with flowers that bloom in the spring.
That was it? Flowers in Arfendonia bloomed in the spring? Duh. Flowers everywhere bloomed in the spring. That wasn’t helpful at all.
What was George supposed to do on Friday night? Stand there with a crown on his head holding up purple flowers? He’d look like a royal doofus!
George looked around the room. Alex was busy taking notes about how to do hypnotism. Julianna had a huge stack of airplane books next to her. Sage was reading about snakes. Mike was chomping on a potato chip, which was okay, because it was research.
The only one not doing anything was George.
“Are you okay, George?” Ms. Folio asked him
.
George shook his head. “There’s no information in these books about the country my family is from.”
“There are other ways to do research, George,” Ms. Folio said.
“I already looked on the Internet, and I couldn’t find anything out,” George told her. “My country looked like a dot. I actually thought it was a speck of dirt at first.”
“Have you talked to any of your relatives?” Ms. Folio asked him. “Maybe your grandparents know something about the old country.”
George shrugged. “My grandma never mentioned anything about it before.”
“Perhaps that’s because no one’s ever asked,” Ms. Folio suggested.
“So you mean I can do research just by talking?” George asked. “I don’t have to look in a book?”
Ms. Folio nodded. “It’s called getting an oral history,” she explained. “That’s how people learned history before there were books. They told each other stories about the past.”
George shook his head. It was hard to imagine there was ever a time without books. “I guess it’s worth a try,” he said finally.
As George put his book back on the shelf, he heard Louie laughing. “What’s the matter, George? Can’t find your made-up country?”
George didn’t answer. What was the point?
“Some king,” Louie continued. “You’re the king of nothing.”
“Wow. I hadn’t thought about Arfendonia in years,” George’s grandma told him as she took a sip of her tea. It was Wednesday afternoon. George’s mom had driven him to her house after school so he could do some oral-history research.
“Do you know King Stanley?” George asked her.
His grandmother shook her head. “I don’t know anyone in Arfendonia,” she admitted. “I’ve never been there. No one from our family has been there since my grandmother and grandfather moved here.”
George frowned. It didn’t seem like his grandmother was going to be much help.
“So you don’t even know if we’re really related to King Stanley?” George asked sadly.
“Oh, we’re probably related,” his grandmother assured him. “It’s a very small country. Everyone there is related to the royal family somehow.”
“Didn’t your grandparents ever tell you anything about what it was like living in Arfendonia?” George wondered.
“Not really,” George’s grandma admitted.
Oh brother. This was going nowhere. George was miserable.
Which he knew would make Louie really happy.
Which only made George more miserable.
“Wait a minute, Mom,” George’s mother piped up. “Isn’t your grandmother’s old trunk up in the attic?”
George’s grandma nodded. “You’re right,” she said. “There are probably some Arfendonian things in there.”
“You think there’s anything that could help me with my presentation?” George asked anxiously.
His grandmother shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “But it’s worth a look.”
As George climbed up the narrow stairs to the attic, he spotted two huge spiderwebs hanging from the beams of the ceiling. Obviously his grandma hadn’t been up here in a while, or she would have cleaned things up. She was always cleaning something.
George didn’t blame his grandma for not wanting to go up to the dusty and gloomy attic. It smelled really funky. Like mothballs and old shoes.
And it was dark. The only thing lighting the room was a bare bulb in the middle of the ceiling. It cast some really eerie shadows on the wall. The sooner George could get out, the better!
He quickly walked over to the big old trunk in the corner of the attic.
“Whoa!” George exclaimed as he bumped into a lady standing in the shadows of the attic.
Huh? A lady in the attic?
Hey, where did she come from?
The lady didn’t say. She couldn’t. She had no mouth. Or arms. Or legs.
The lady was really an old dress mannequin his grandmother had stored up in the attic.
There was no one else there. Just George, the creepy mannequin, and the two spiders spinning their webs.
Actually, that wasn’t exactly true. There was someone else, in the attic. Well, something else, anyway.
Something big and bubbly.
Something that bounced up and down and all around.
The magical super burp was back! And it was ready to play.
The bubbles were parachuting from George’s pancreas and spinning around his spine. They were traipsing along his tonsils and trampolining on his tongue.
George shut his mouth tight, trying to keep that burp from sneaking out.
But there was no way this belch was getting squelched. The burp had never played around in an attic before.
Zing-zong. Bing-bong!
The bubbles twisted between George’s teeth and grappled with his gums. And then . . .
George let out a giant burp. A magical super burp.
Now that the burp was on the loose, George was going to have to do whatever the burp wanted. And what the burp wanted was to see what was inside that trunk!
George’s hands reached over and opened the trunk. Dust from the lid flew up into the air and landed right in George’s nose.
Aaachoooo! George’s nose let out a string of boogers. George wanted to wipe his nose. He really did. But the burp didn’t feel like wiping. It felt like grabbing. So George’s hands reached into the trunk and grabbed a big black top hat.
George placed the hat on his head. Then his hands dived back into the trunk and pulled out a flowing feather boa, and wrapped it around his neck.
Suddenly, George’s feet started moving—all on their own. One . . . two . . . cha-cha-cha. One . . . two . . . cha-cha-cha.
George didn’t want his feet to move. He wanted to search the trunk for something he could use for his presentation. But George wasn’t in charge anymore. The burp was. And the burp wanted to do the cha-cha!
George grabbed the mannequin and began twirling it around the dance floor . . . uh . . . er . . . attic.
One . . . two . . . cha-cha-cha. One . . . two . . . cha-cha-cha!
“What is going on up here?”
Suddenly, George heard his mother and his grandmother coming up the attic stairs. He wanted to whip off the boa, flip off the hat, and stop the dancing before they saw how ridiculous he looked. But the burp was having waaaayyy too much fun.
One . . . two . . . cha-cha-cha. One . . . two . . .
Pop! Suddenly George felt something burst in his belly. All the air rushed right out of him. The super burp was gone.
But George was still there. With a top hat on his head, a feather boa around his neck, a mannequin in his arms, and a long string of boogers hanging from his nose.
“Oh my goodness.” George’s mom laughed. “What were you doing?”
George opened his mouth to say “The cha-cha,” and that’s exactly what came out.
George’s grandmother laughed.
“I’m glad you’re having fun up here, but it’s almost dinnertime,” George’s mom reminded him. “How about you take off those things and start looking for something you can use for your report?”
His grandmother handed him a tissue from her pocket. “And wipe your nose,” she added.
George took the tissue and wiped. Then he started looking through the trunk. There was nothing special about most of the stuff in there. Most of it was just junk—hats, shoes, and some old books.
Suddenly, one of the books caught his eye. It was bright orange with a giant royal-looking seal stamped on the cover.
George flipped the book open and read a little. “Yes!” he exclaimed. “This is exactly what I need.”
George started to show the book to his mom and grandma. But then, he f
elt something weird in his belly.
Oh no! Not the burp. Not again!
Gurgle. Glurp. Gurgle.
Phew. That wasn’t a burp. It was just hunger pangs.
This time.
But there could always be another time when George wouldn’t be so lucky. And what if that time turned out to be Friday night?
“A cookbook?” Alex asked George as they walked to school the next day. “That was the only thing that you found at your grandmother’s house?”
“Not just any cookbook,” George corrected him. “A cookbook filled with recipes created by the Arfendonian royal palace chef. I’m going to cook a traditional Arfendonian dish and serve it to everyone on Friday.”
Alex thought about that. “That’s a great idea,” he said. “You can tell a lot about a country by what the people eat. It shows what kind of food they grow on their farms. And that shows you what kind of weather and soil they have, because certain vegetables grow in moist soil while others grow in drier land.”
“Exactly what I was thinking,” George said. Even though he hadn’t been thinking that at all. He’d just been happy to come up with a fun presentation about Arfendonia. “How’s your presentation coming?”
“I could use a favor,” Alex told him.
“Anything you need,” George said. And he meant it. He owed Alex big-time. After all, his best pal had been spending a lot of time helping George try to find a cure for the super burp.
Alex was the only other person who knew about George’s burping troubles. George hadn’t told Alex. Alex was just so smart that he’d figured it out all by himself. Lucky for George, Alex was a good friend. He hadn’t told anyone about the burp. And he’d vowed to help George find the cure.
So far, nothing had worked. Not the onion milk shakes, nor the spicy ginger candies. Nothing. But if anyone could find a cure, it would be Alex.
“I want to try to hypnotize you,” Alex explained to George. “I’ve been reading up on it. And I think I hypnotized my neighbor’s dog Josie last night. But it’s hard to tell with a dog. I need a human to experiment on.”
